Look at how wacko extremist US Republicans have become

Is the US Republican party actually trying to make itself irrelevant?

"Cowboys are frequently fond of each other" - Wille Nelson :)

Wille Nelson has spoken out against anti-LGBT stuff.


 

Biggest consequence of marriage equality

We are here. We exist. We are part of the community. Nothing will change that. Marriage equality will go an enormous way to the community at large engaging with us and us being part of the community at large; diverse and rich source of humanity. Instead of separated from society as a fringe group, we will enrich society. As minorities do generally when embraced by society.

FFS, society could do with a bit of our message of love and inclusiveness. 

It's pension day! Hooray! :)

We made it! Good grief, what a period of diabolical poverty the last week has been. We were $100 down on the fortnight, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it certainly ended up being so. David found a winning $7 scratchie ticket under the lounge yesterday and we felt like we'd won the lottery! It was up to the supermarket and I managed to buy Coles brand pastry, a bag of Coles brand sugar, and Coles brand mince for $7.70. Made a meat pie out of it with potatoes and veges for dinner. Came out pretty good. Without the stratchie win it was going to be spaghetti on toast :s

So all us pensioners are out and about today, supporting the economy buying things like sausages and mince, prescriptions and (in our case) cold tablets. Clogging the supermarket aisles and chemist counters, almost mad with glee at actually having money for a fleeting moment :) 

We got most of the essentials, the spend seems to be about $120 on pension day for groceries. Put away $40 for the gas bill next month, and the auto-payments that come out for the phone land line and electricity come to $80 as well. Next pension I put $40 for the internet for the month. With all that and David transferring $300 from his Carers pension to me and the fortnightly rent going out on Friday, there is $30 left. Enough to get my HIV prescriptions soon and leaving $18 for bits and pieces over the next fortnight.

I handed the control of money over to David after my credit card bit the dust. He used to run a business and enjoys the control of money, unlike me who's money mind never came back after the kidney failure brain damage. I'm glad, he really seems to know what he's doing. He has about $200 left out of his pension and the Carers Allowance of $120 he gets next week with everything paid so far. I'm just happy to help out and have a roof over my head. Takes a lot of stress and worry off me.

  

Religious contribution to us this month- featuring Josh Duggar

Get tested pronto (NSFW) - official clip

Russia to ban shirtless men :s

Good grief.......

The bill elucidates this as “either absence of clothes or nudity of either upper or lower parts of the body” for men and women alike. The list of “unethical clothing” includes men’s and women’s underwear and swimsuits. Milonov noted in explanations that the definition of swimwear and underwear can be found in the state register of industrial standards. Violation of the bill must be punished with an administrative fine between 1,000 and 3,000 rubles ($20-30) more

 

Abbott wants housing prices to increase - WTF?

Oh what a vile, selfish, piece of shit he is. For fucks bloody sake. Because Abbott owns a house he wants housing to increase, despite hardly anybody being able to buy or rent one in Sydney. Unless they have Tony Abbott as their father, or their parents are already house owners in Sydney. 

Perhaps fuckwit Abbott can ever increase my pension correspondingly with housing so we can afford to live in ever increasing priced housing then eh? How about that then Tone? We've just gone 6 days without a fuckin cent because of rent. Glad David's a good cook and can make stuff out of very little :) 

Just lucky too I've been here for nearly 9 years now and the rent increases have been very modest in that time. If we had to leave and rent again privately around here we'd be in real trouble, at least $100 more a week.

Roll on the housing crash I say. I'd love to see selfish turds like Abbott go down.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has welcomed increasing house prices in Sydney on the same day the head of Treasury voiced strong concerns about a developing housing bubble in the country's largest city. 

Asked by Labor leader Bill Shorten about John Fraser's comments earlier on Monday, Mr Abbott said housing affordability was important but that home owners like him would prefer to see house prices continue to rise in Sydney. 

"As someone who, along with the bank, owns a house in Sydney I do hope our housing prices are increasing," Mr Abbott said in question time on Monday. more  

Budget bounce over because of gay marriage - Morgan

All the polls I've seen lately are pretty much 52/48 to Labor. Morgan however has an increase in the Labor vote on it's latest polling, Morgan putting it down to Shorten taking the initiative on gay marriage.

“The ‘Budget Bounce’ for the Coalition Government has proved short-lived with the ALP 53% (up 2% since May 16/17, 2015) regaining a clear advantage over the L-NP 47% (down 2%) on a two-party preferred basis after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten promised to introduce a private member’s bill to Parliament to allow for a redefinition of marriage under Australian law. 

“Shorten believes the definition of marriage should be broadened to include gay and lesbian couples following the results of the Irish referendum last week in which Irish electors decided by a clear margin (Yes 62% cf. No 38%) to change the Irish definition of marriage to include same-sex relationships. A Roy Morgan poll conducted in 2011 found an even larger majority of Australians (68%) support the right of gay people to get married compared to only 30% who think they shouldn’t have this right. 

“In addition, other Roy Morgan research shows an increasing majority of Australians believe homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt children. In 2010 just under half of Australians (48%) agreed homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt children and this figure has increased steadily each year since – to 51% in 2011, 56% in 2012, 58% in 2013 and 61% in 2014. 

“There have already been several attempts to legislate for same-sex marriage in Australia, including an attempt by the Australian Capital Territory to change the definition of marriage in the ACT which was ultimately reversed by the High Court on constitutional grounds following a challenge by the Federal Government which wanted to prevent a multitude of definitions of marriage being introduced in Australia. 

“Although Shorten introduced his same-sex marriage bill to the Lower House of Parliament today, less than half the chamber was in attendance with only a handful of Government MPs there to witness Shorten introducing his bill. Shorten’s private member’s bill is the third same-sex marriage bill before Parliament along with similar bills by Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm and a Greens bill also before the Senate. more

Abbott seems to be linking gay marriage conditionally to his being able to pass his unfair budget first however. Typical. 

 

US financial sector costing US economy 2% growth a year

It happens when they try and make money out of money instead of out of real profits and goods. Anybody want a cheap mortgage?

Problems occur when the financial sector gets too big. When the financial sector loses interest in the “boring” returns from financing the real economy and instead devotes its efforts to activities that are more lucrative in the short-term, like playing zero-sum games, or even negative-sum games, through complex transactions aimed at making money out of money, then excessive risk-taking occurs, with mis-allocation of human and financial resources and periodic financial crashes. 

Throughout history, periods of excessive financialization have coincided with periods of national economic setbacks, such as Spain in the 14th century, The Netherlands in the late 18th century and Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The focus by elites on “making money out of money” rather than making real goods and services has led to wealth for the few, and overall national economic decline. “In a financialized economy, the financial tail is wagging the economic dog.” 

How Big Is Too Big? 

How big is too big? An IMF study in 2012 showed that “once the [financial] sector becomes too large—when private-sector credit reaches 80% to 100% of GDP— it actually inhibits growth and increases volatility. In the United States in 2012, private-sector credit was 184% of GDP.” So the U.S. financial sector is already way too big. 

And what’s the cost? The new IMF study quantifies the direct cost to U.S. economic growth of an oversized financial sector: 2% of GDP per year. In other words, if the financial sector were the proper size, the U.S. economy would be enjoying a normal economic recovery of 3% to 4% per year instead of the dismal 1% to 2% of the last few years. more

So the fat cats are getting rich not only at the expense of the lower and middle class, but at the expense of the economy itself. 

Bloody greedy bastards, they want it all. 

Labor introduces marriage equality bill - Canberra picture & videos

Note the absent Lieberals..... FFS......

Also note we're paying SSJoe $270 a night to stay in his wife's Canberra home so he can attend parliament..... 

 

Pell's 60 Minutes nightmare - church official says his position now "untenable"

Pell's position in the church is described by the churches "commissioner for the protection of children" Peter Saunders as "untenable", whilst Australian 60 Minutes revisits the topic of Pell that they originally blew the lid off some years back. Saunders is also demanding that Pell return to Australia and front up to the Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

Mr Saunders has told the Nine Network's 60 Minutes program that Cardinal Pell should be sent back to Australia and should fulfil a moral obligation to front the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

He said the position of the cardinal was untenable "because he now has a catalogue of denials".

"Given the position of George Pell as a cardinal of the church and a position of huge authority within the Vatican, I think he is a massive, massive thorn in the side of Pope Francis' papacy if he's allowed to remain." more

BTW, Abbott in 2013, WTF?:  

He added: “I suspect that it wasn't just the church that didn't handle these things well.

 

A close encounter of the lazy rich person kind

I'm sure this isn't indicative of rich people in general, any more than a lazy poor person is indicative of poor people in general. I tell the story to illustrate the point simply that lazy people come in all shapes and sizes and are not exclusive to one section of the community.

So I go to the bank this morning to prove my ID (see previous post). To do this isn't a simple thing at the front counter, but I have to go into a cubicle with a person behind a big desk, in this case a nice lady. I explain the simple thing that needs doing and she sets about logging into the computer and finding me in there. We start chatting through this as I get out the required ID.

She's a recently graduated university student in something or other, and has been working for only about a year. She relates fondly how fun uni was and how much she'd like to go back there if she was able. I asked how she was enjoying work. She replied:

"I don't want to work. When I was at university my parents paid for everything and I didn't have to worry about anything. I would like to go back to university if I could. It was so much fun there."

I was momentarily speechless, followed immediately by a few seconds of severely biting my tongue. A smile was out of the question. 

So there you go, a lazy rich person. 

As I said, I'm sure she's not how most rich people are. Any more than a lazy poor person on welfare isn't how most poor people are. 

Commonwealth Bank - three weeks to prove I'm me :s

Oh well, it's providing sort of a strange entertainment for me. Like a morbid fascination with the bureaucracy of Australia's Commonwealth Bank. It's starting to look rather as bad as Centrelink.

This has been going on now for three weeks since my first visit to the financial councilor from Wesley Mission. Admittedly yes he initially got my last name wrong (easy to do as I have a weird last name) but the problem is the Commonwealth Bank is doing everything by snail mail. Yes, snail mail, in 2015 FFS. They do use fax machines, but who the fuck at home has a fax machine?

Anyway, after filling out the form from the $bloke correcting the misspelling of my name the week before last, the $bloke rang the bank and faxed off the form from the Community Centre where he is for two days a week. Then two working days later I get a mysterious letter from the Commonwealth Bank. In it is an authority form from them to be filled out, instead of the one from Wesley Mission that we sent. Nothing else in the envelope. No explanation, no instructions, nothing but this blank authority form from them. WTF? Was the Wesley Mission authority form not good enough for them or some shit? Apparently not.

So I filled out my bit of it, and delivered it down the road to the Community Centre where the $bloke will be for a couple of days later in the week. I put a little note of explanation in it for him to fill out his bit and send it back to the bank, and also an email of explanation to him with a PDF scan of it.

As fate would have it however he was sick for those two days later in the week and only got back to work this morning. At which time he rang me, saying he was sending the form off today, but that the bank still wanted me to attend the bank with proof of ID. This all had to be done before the bank would talk to him at all. Fuck, why couldn't this all have been done by email? The bank would have had the form nearly a week ago.

So it was down to the bank earlier today to prove I was actually me :s Good grief. Which I did, and sent an email confirmation to the $bloke that I had in fact attended the local Commonwealth Bank branch and had proved that I was definitely me.

*sheesh* 

Sick - yellow slime disease

Ack. Came down with it yesterday. Got it from David. He went on the buses to get his HIV meds the other day and since then has been getting worse and worse, although this morning there seems some improvement with him. I think public transport is the easiest way to get colds and the like. 

It's been so bloody cold and miserable the last few days in Sydney. Heavy cloud cover and hardly warming up at all. Getting dark not long after 4pm some days with all the gloom, and having to turn on the lights inside. The buses though are very warm, which going from cold to warm to cold again is particularly conducive to illness.

Anyway I've started coughing up yellow slime this morning. Haven't sneezed any yet. David has been sneezing at a rate of knots though, and at least 100 decibels. I assume I will be entering that stage shortly.